


In Our Kingdom by the Shore

by Allizane



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, Blood, Canonincal Character Death (Mal), Happy Ending, Implied Child Abuse, Little Mermaid, M/M, Non-Consensual Potion Use, Self-Harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-01
Updated: 2012-12-02
Packaged: 2017-11-20 00:25:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,822
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/579270
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Allizane/pseuds/Allizane
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Arthur is no one's shining prince. (A retelling of Disney’s <i>The Little Mermaid</i>.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. One.

The first time Arthur sees the boy, he is ten winters old. The boy is standing in the water, not so deep that Arthur can't see his legs but deep enough for the waves to hide his knees. He’s standing very still, staring out at the horizon, and Arthur wonders if he’s trapped, or if maybe his legs aren’t working properly. That can happen sometimes with legs, Yusuf says.

Arthur’s not supposed to be here, this close to the shore, but it's a safe space precisely because the others find it so dangerous. And he gets tired of the caves, where it’s dreary and dark save for the occasional flash from one of Yusuf’s experiments. Sometimes Arthur wants to feel the sun on his skin. Sometimes he wants to watch the birds. It’s not that they come anywhere near him, either, but at least with them it’s not personal.

He knows better than to get close enough to let himself be seen, but the boy — he’s never seen a boy before. And this one seems so strange, standing there all alone. 

Before he realizes it, he's swum closer, within sight. The boy’s spotted Arthur’s face above the waves, and he's looking at him with his head cocked to one side. 

“Hello,” yells the boy. “I’m Eames. Are you a hallucination? Nurse said my fever’s passed, but maybe she just wanted to get me outside.”

Arthur blinks. 

“Well, you’re not very interesting, as far as hallucinations go. Frankly I’m disappointed in my imagination,” the boy continues, scattering some nearby gulls with his loudness.

Arthur opens his mouth, but it’s been a while since he’s used his voice. Yusuf’s been gone for two weeks now, collecting ingredients, and Arthur’s generally not one for speaking even with someone around to listen.

“Go on, then,” says Eames. “I introduced myself, and now it’s your turn. Unless you’re a mute hallucination, in which case we’ll have to try miming or something...”

“Arthur,” Arthur manages to force out, and it’s gravelly and rough and more like a seal’s bark than a word. “My — my name is Arthur,” he finishes, and hates that his voice wavers at the end. He’s even closer now, and wonders when that happened. 

“Arthur,” repeats Eames, more quietly. “That’s a nice name. Bit common, though, innit? Do you live in town? Do you want to come ‘round my cottage for tea sometime? If you’re real, that is. Or maybe it’d be better if you weren’t, then I couldn’t get you ill.”

Arthur is curious despite himself.

“You’re ill?” he asks. 

“Yeah,” says Eames. “Something with my lungs. Probably shouldn’t have shouted at you like that, but it’s not too bad just yet. No blood, but they keep checking. Matter of time, I guess...” He trails off, looks beyond Arthur at the water. “My mum had it. They said the sea air might help, so here I am.”

“Is your mother here also?” asks Arthur, trying to remember if this was how conversations worked. Someone talked and you responded, and eventually the two of you would bow and go your separate ways. 

Eames snorts. Arthur rethinks the bowing. 

“Mum’s gone,” Eames says. “Don’t last long once the blood shows. Fairly sure they only sent me here so I could die out of sight and not upset the household.”

“Is there no medicine?” Arthur asks. In Yusuf’s stories, the men on the shore had all sorts of advanced instruments and tools. Can they really have no better remedy for sickness than air?

“There’s a lot of stuff they keep forcing on me,” says Eames. “But I don’t think any of it works. At any rate, it didn’t do shit for my mum, and he actually liked her.”

His father, Arthur presumes, but doesn’t ask Eames to clarify. Fathers can be complicated. 

“But you seem all right now,” he says instead. “So it can’t be doing you any harm.”

Eames shrugs. He’s looking at Arthur more intently now, and suddenly darts forward in the water to grab at his arm. He’s no match for Arthur, though, and tumbles down when he misses and Arthur swims beyond his grasp.

Eames surfaces, splutters, then laughs. “Another day, then,” he says. A shout rings out in the distance. “And that’ll be Nurse; she’ll have my hide once she sees I went for a swim.” He pulls at the wet cloth of his shirt with a frown.

Arthur can see a figure walking quickly across the sand, and ducks down beneath the waves without thinking, swimming rapidly away. He hears a muffled “Goodbye, Arthur!” from where Eames was standing, and bites his lip. Guess he doesn’t remember how conversations work after all.

***

The next time they meet, Arthur shows Eames his tail. It’s an accident; Eames is standing in the water again and Arthur is so excited that he’s there — despite the three days that passed since they saw each other last, despite Eames’s sickness, despite _Arthur_ — that he does a little flip, and only realizes his mistake when he surfaces and finds Eames staring at him, wide-eyed.

“Right,” says Eames thickly. “I realize this may be forward of me, but if you want me to believe that you are not, in fact, a product of my apparently still-fevered mind, I am absolutely going to need to touch that.” 

Arthur moves back instinctively. He doesn’t remember the last time someone touched him, but Eames looks resolute, one arm stretching out across the water, not grasping but waiting. 

Hesitantly, Arthur curls his body until his two tail fins appear above the surface, and lets the waves push him towards Eames. The other boy’s touch is light, searching; he pats at the scales before taking his hand away. 

“Well,” says Eames, “That’s...that’s fucking brilliant, that is,” and his smile is crooked but so wide and happy that Arthur can’t help but smile back, the skin stretching across his face in an unfamiliar way. 

“And you have dimples!” Eames crows. “My god, all those stories about the monsters in the water and you’re bloody adorable.” 

“Well, you’re not exactly terrifying yourself,” Arthur retorts, because the people in Yusuf’s stories were usually armed with spears and hooks and all sorts of weaponry. 

“Give it a few years,” Eames says cheerfully, “And I’ll be a proper thug. Least, that’s what I hear.” His face twists, then, and he brings up his arm to cough violently into his elbow. “Then again, the world may never know.” He says it matter-of-factly, but now that Arthur is looking, he can see that Eames looks worse than he did the last time, paler and with a thin sheen of sweat on his brow. 

“Are you cold?” he asks. “Perhaps you shouldn’t be in the water.” 

Eames shrugs. “I’ll take talking to a mermaid over warmth any day, Arthur, so don’t worry your pretty little head about it.” 

Arthur blinks. “All right,” he says. Then, before he can help it: “Could you repeat what you just said? I’m having trouble deciding about which part I should be most outraged.” 

Eames throws back his head and laughs, and Arthur thinks, _Maybe that’s more important than warmth_. Still, the next time he swims out to the shore, he brings a large vial of Yusuf’s warming potion and tells Eames to drink some before entering the water, and doesn’t mind that it means he has to go without. The caves aren’t that cold during the summer, anyway. 

*** 

Over the next two months, Arthur learns to be particularly efficient at his work, leaving him time to visit the boy on the shore. Eames was looking better lately, and Arthur wonders if maybe there’s something in the warming potions that’s helping. They find a nice secluded spot near a rock for their meetings, out of sight of Eames’s nurse, but shallow enough at low tide that Eames’s clothes can stay dry if he rolls up his shorts all the way. 

Sometimes Eames asks to stroke his tail fins again and Arthur lets him, though he doesn’t understand the fascination. Nearly everything in the sea has a tail just like it. Far more curious are Eames’s legs. Arthur can’t quite bring himself to touch those, though it would only be fair. 

He also wants to ask about the marks on the inside of Eames’s arms, round patches of dark skin the size of Arthur’s fingertips, but Eames always frowns when he catches Arthur looking, tugging on his sleeves to cover them up, so Arthur learns not to see them. 

They talk. 

Hesitantly, choosing his words carefully, Arthur tells Eames about Yusuf, about living in the caves, the necessity of having access to space above the water in which to mix potions and spells. 

“So he’s like a sorcerer, your Yusuf?” Eames asks him. 

Arthur looks down, spreads his hand against the sea’s surface. “A healer,” he corrects, and dreads Eames’s next question. 

But Eames only nods. “Right, so no turning people into lizards or anything, got it.” 

Arthur is startled enough to meet his gaze. “Why would you want to turn someone into a lizard?” 

Eames gives him one of his crooked grins. “Why not?” 

Another day, Arthur asks Eames about cities, if it’s true that they’re giant reef-like structures where people live instead of fish. 

“Er, not quite,” says Eames, and tries to explain the concept of steel and right angles. Arthur nods along and only understands about half of what Eames is saying, but he likes the sound of his voice. 

“Don’t your lot have cities?” Eames asks. “What are they made out?” 

Arthur thinks. “Rock. Debris from sunken ships.” He scans his memory for more details, but all he can really remember is the palace, and that was destroyed. 

“Sorry,” he says. “I haven’t been to a city in a while.” 

“How come?” 

“They’re crowded. Dangerous.” It’s not a lie, but it’s not exactly the truth, either. 

Eames opens his mouth to ask another question but is interrupted by a sudden coughing fit. 

Perhaps he isn’t getting better after all. 

“’Scuse me,” Eames says, struggling for breath. 

Arthur frowns and tentatively puts a hand on Eames’s shoulder to steady him. “Should you go back to your — dwelling?” 

Eames waves him off and straightens. “I’m fine, it’s nothing. Besides, not much they can do for me there. Good food and fresh sea air, that’s what they keep saying. ‘Course, there’s a war going on right now so the food’s a bit of an issue, but at least there’s no shortage of air.” 

Eames looks at Arthur from the corner of his eye. Arthur realizes that he’s suddenly gone very still. 

“Do you — do you understand war?” 

Arthur focuses on the feel of the water against his palms. He nods. He understands war. 

"Was there one recently?" Eames asks, nearly whispering. 

Arthur nods again. Five winters ago is recent enough, for him. 

“Did the good guys win?” And Eames’s tone is curious now, but still careful. Arthur wonders if that’s for his benefit. 

He shrugs; a sharp, jerky motion. “How do you tell which ones are good?” 

Eames bites his lip and hums thoughtfully. “Guess you can’t. I mean, it seems pretty obvious to me that we’re the good guys in our war. But maybe in Berlin it’s just as obvious that we’re not.” 

Arthur isn’t sure where Berlin is, if it’s further beyond the sea, so far away that no hints of war have made it to the shore. He’s glad of the distance. 

*** 

That evening, once hunger drives Eames back to land, Arthur returns to the caves and helps Yusuf stabilize a new potion. Yusuf is distracted enough trying to keep the bubbling constant that Arthur is fairly certain he won’t remember anything they discuss. 

“Was my father a bad man?” he asks. 

“Your father was a king,” Yusuf says, eyes scanning the shelves for a vial. “Rare is the king who can be good and still hold the throne.” 

His father had held the throne for fifty years before losing it. Arthur isn’t sure where that leaves him. 

“Aha!” shouts Yusuf, and turns to sprinkle something purple into the mixture, followed by a quick dive as the cauldron spits out a sizzling green jet in return. Arthur sighs and goes to get a rag. 

*** 

At night, lying in his nest of seaweed and bits of rescued cloth, Arthur closes his eyes and has memories in place of dreams. 

He hears his mother’s screams, sees the faint light glinting off the soldiers’ spears as they drag her away. The way her blood swirls in the water like one of Yusuf’s spilled potions. 

“I do not murder children,” Cobb says, and he never once looks at Arthur. 

His mother’s body hangs limply in the netting, pushing to float to the surface. 

“He will be banished. For a youth spent in luxury and decadence, a lifetime of privation is punishment enough.” 

Two darkened holes where his older brother’s eyes had been, his mouth gaping open to match, only the stake driven through his spine keeping him still. 

Was Cobb a bad man, or merely a king? 

*** 

Eames isn’t at the shore the next time they’re meant to meet. 

*** 

Three weeks go by before Arthur sees him again. The water is colder, choppier. Eames is sitting on top of the rock, his legs shaking slightly in the breeze. His eyes are glazed and he doesn’t notice Arthur watching him. 

“Hello,” says Arthur. 

“Oh,” says Eames, and his voice is hoarse. “There you are.” 

“Yes,” says Arthur, unsure. “Here I am.” 

Eames smiles, but it’s only a ghost of his former grins. “I’m glad. Was worried you’d given up — ” And he coughs, an awful, wet sound, and his hand comes away red. “Sorry,” he says. “Just wanted to say — goodbye, I guess.” 

Arthur’s eyes follow Eames’s blood-flecked palm. 

“No,” he says, surprising himself. “Not yet.” 

Eames opens his mouth to respond, possibly to force the issue, but Arthur doesn’t let him. 

“Come back tomorrow,” Arthur says. “I’ll — I’ll figure something out.” 

And he ducks beneath the surface and swims away before Eames can reply, hoping that Eames will be there the next day, if only to berate Arthur for interrupting. 

*** 

Yusuf is still gone when Arthur returns to the caves. He isn’t sure where to start; his people’s lungs are small, almost vestigial; not like the ones humans have if Yusuf’s etchings are any indication. But that’s all right. He’ll just have to rely more heavily on magic for this one; let the spell transform his intention into something that will work. 

He readies a cauldron, thinks for a moment while starting a small flame with the fine black powder Yusuf reserves for potions requiring sorcery. The problem had something to do with blood and air. He pours in a vial of liquid oyster to serve as the base and adds a pinch of frilled shark skin — it’s Yusuf’s rarest, most precious ingredient, which Arthur assumes is testament to its value in healing. Yusuf will likely be furious when he discovers its absence, but that’s a problem for another day. 

Then, feeling silly, Arthur pushes his head an inch away from the oyster and exhales. The liquid remains off-white; the fire steady. 

Blood it is, then. 

_Magic is not without its costs_ , he remembers Yusuf telling him his first week in the caves, three summers ago. Arthur hadn’t fully understood until a month later, when a maid came begging for a spell to make her beautiful and left with a new form and blind eyes.

Swimming over to the cabinet holding Yusuf’s instruments, Arthur frowns, thinking. There’s an assortment of knives inside and Arthur chooses the one with the cruelest-looking blade, serrated and sharp. 

He goes back to the cauldron, holds his arm above the mixture and slices through the skin above his wrist in one smooth motion. 

The pain is immediate, burning and sharp. Arthur remains still, letting the blood pour out, watching carefully as it sinks below the liquid oyster. Slowly, gradually, the mixture turns a soft pink. Arthur waits until he can’t any more, until his head feels light and dark spots encroach on his vision, then grabs at some weeds and presses them to the wound, staunching the flow. “Eames,” he breathes out over the mixture’s surface, which shimmers briefly in reply. The flame releases a plume of sweet-smelling smoke, then flickers out. 

He doesn’t know how long he sits, holding his arm. He doesn’t dare use any ointment to close the wound more quickly or prevent a scar. That might lessen his sacrifice and the potion’s efficacy, and he’s not sure if it will work — but it will, it must. 

The bleeding slows. Arthur clumsily pours the mixture into four empty vials and stoppers them. Lowering his arm into the water is another torture, but the pain is almost a relief in its distraction. 

*** 

The next morning, Arthur swims out to the shore before the sun is fully up. Yusuf doesn’t stop him, doesn’t ask about the bloodstains or the missing ingredients. He merely tells Arthur to bind his arm more tightly, then goes back to unpacking his satchel. 

Eames doesn’t arrive at the rock for hours. Arthur tries to count the birds circling overhead but has to restart every few minutes. 

And then he sees him, carefully making his way over the rocks until he reaches the last one and slumps down with a grunt. He looks just as bad as yesterday but no worse. Arthur can convince himself of that much, at least. 

“Here,” Arthur says, handing him a vial. “It’ll help.” Perhaps faith is also vital to the process. 

“All right,” says Eames, slowly, as though speaking through mud. “Shall I drink it all, then?” 

Arthur nods. 

Eames opens the vial and downs the contents in one go, a curious expression on his face after. 

“Huh,” he says, and his voice is still thick, but better. Maybe. “I thought it’d be vile like those warming ones, but this was — sweet.” 

Eames takes a breath, then another. Arthur’s tail is twitching nervously beneath the waves, but he doesn’t let Eames see. 

“New recipe,” Arthur says. “Just for you.” 

Eames smiles, and that’s — yes, that’s the right one, that’s how his smiles should look. 

“Awfully obliging of you, Arthur,” he says. Then his eyes narrow. “Why’s your wrist all wrapped up in seaweed?” he asks. 

“Tradition.” Arthur is almost surprised at how easily the lie comes. “It’s like those red flowers you told me about.” 

Eames frowns. “The poppies, you mean? Your lot can’t do any better than seaweed to remember the dead?” 

As far as Arthur knows, his lot generally remember the dead by increasing their number, but maybe that’s no longer accurate. 

“No flowers underwater,” he says, and then, because he does have faith, he does: “Eventually my whole arm will be covered with seaweed; we sort of build up week by week.” 

“Hmm,” says Eames. “Well, at any rate, your medicines seem to have ours beat. I feel like I can actually go five minutes without coughing up some vital organ.” 

And Arthur can’t help it; he grins, and Eames grins back and says, “Your _dimples_ ; no wonder you’re studying to be a healer; no one would ever take you seriously on the battlefield,” and Arthur says, “For all you know, my people find them terrifying; and furthermore, I really don’t see how someone as skinny as you can judge anyone on their fearsomeness,” and then they’re arguing and it’s like it was before and it’s so good that Arthur doesn’t even feel the pain in his arm anymore. 

“You’ll be back tomorrow?” Arthur asks when the sun starts sinking, realizing he’s just missed an entire day’s work and still has his mess from the night before to clean up. 

Eames purses his lips. “You know, originally I only came here to tell you — well, you know. But I honestly do feel better.” 

“Tomorrow, then?” Arthur confirms. 

“Tomorrow,” Eames agrees, and Arthur feels warmed despite the water’s chill. 

*** 

By the end of the month Arthur’s entire left arm is covered in green, and beneath the weeds is a ladder of scars, thick and red. Eames drinks a vial every few days, and at every meeting he’s louder, more brash; his skin tans in the sun and his smiles come easily and Arthur is — happy, he thinks, and it’s such a strange thing that he’s not entirely certain whether that’s what he means or if it’s something else, something for which he doesn’t have the right words. 

“I’m cured,” Eames tell him one day, and Arthur only just manages to keep from doing a flip. “Or at least, that’s what it feels like; whatever was in those vials worked like magic — which I guess it was, right?” 

Arthur shrugs. 

“Do you know what?” Eames asks suddenly, excited. “We should make more of the stuff. Mass-produce it. There are loads of people who need it, and we could save their lives! And maybe make some money while we’re at it...” he trails off, looking a bit guilty. 

Eames has tried to explain money to Arthur several times, and as far as Arthur can tell it’s like gold but made out of cloth, which seems rather silly. 

“I don’t care about money,” he says. He doesn’t say: _I don’t care about saving any one else_. “And some of the ingredients are in limited supply.” 

“Oh,” says Eames, deflating. Then: “What about potions for curing other things, like baldness or being ginger? Are their ingredients rare as well?” 

Arthur sighs. 

*** 

Towards the beginning of winter Eames announces that he’s been officially proclaimed cured, a miracle for the ages (something Arthur doubts was actually said). Eames doesn’t seem particularly happy about this, though, playing with one of the loose threads at the hem of his sweater and refusing to meet Arthur’s gaze from his perch on the rock. 

“They want to send me away,” he finally says. “There’s a train coming next week to take all the kids up north to the countryside. They’re worried the Germans might drop bombs here because of the ships.” 

“Oh,” says Arthur. A bomb is something like an earthquake and a rain of fire, according to Eames. He wonders if wherever Eames is going is near the sea, but isn’t sure if it’s appropriate to ask. “Is it — is it nice up north?” 

“I’m not going,” says Eames, pursing his mouth into a thin line. “I’ll be fourteen in three days; they can’t make me.” 

“That’s good,” says Arthur. “I hear it gets really cold up there. You could get sick again.” 

Eames jerks his head up, eyes narrowing. “You’re not going to try to talk me out of staying?” 

“Why would I want you to leave?” Arthur asks, bewildered. “It’s not like you’re in any danger, if they’re just going for the ships.” 

“...Right,” says Eames, but there’s something off about it. 

*** 

Arthur knows that birthdays are important, because Eames told him so. He’s meant to present some sort of offering for the occasion, and has been scouring the sea floor for something Eames might find interesting. 

“There’s rumblings in the city,” Yusuf says at dinner. “They say the humans are bringing their war to our waters.” 

“But it’s just the ships,” says Arthur. “So that’s a good thing, isn’t it? More supplies when they sink.” 

Yusuf laughs grimly. “It’ll be the ships, the water, and all the surrounding land before they’re done. Humans aren’t particularly discriminating with their destruction.” 

Arthur stays silent for the rest of the meal. 

*** 

The problem, Arthur knows, is this: if he tries to get Eames to leave, Eames will be even more adamant about staying, because he’s stubborn and contrary like that. And if he tells Eames to stay, that clearly Eames isn’t strong enough to venture up north by himself, Eames will agree because it means getting what he wants, even at the cost of his pride. 

Eames, Arthur acknowledges, can be very exasperating to deal with at times. 

The only solution is to take away Eames’s reason for wanting to remain at the shore, because traveling north sounds like the kind of adventure he’d normally go for, except, of course, when staying put means being able to speak with a sea creature like Arthur, who for some reason Eames still finds fascinating. 

_He has to forget about me_ , Arthur thinks, and this is a new kind of pain, bright and deep. _I have to keep him safe_. He doesn’t examine why. 

*** 

“I need to make a forgetting potion,” Arthur tells Yusuf the next morning. 

Yusuf looks up at him from his etchings, surprised. Arthur generally doesn’t initiate conversations. Or use phrases like “I need.” 

“Tricky things, mind potions,” Yusuf says in response, frowning. “They often don’t work as you mean them to. What memories are you seeking to erase?” 

“Memories of the sea,” Arthur says. “...And something in it." 

Yusuf examines him thoughtfully. “In that case, you would need to use a base of sea water, and add a part of whatever that something is.” 

“How large a part?” 

“Hmm, it would have to be significant. And you would need to use the most memorable part for the magic to work properly.” He pauses. “I really wouldn’t recommend it, Arthur.” 

He brings his hand up to loosely grip Arthur’s arm. Arthur realizes that Yusuf thinks the potion is for _Arthur_ , and — he can't help it; bares his teeth in a snarl, and Yusuf draws back without touching him. 

That night, Yusuf makes an unscheduled trip to the city. Arthur will find some way to repay his kindness later. 

*** 

It doesn’t hurt as much as Arthur expected, really. Arthur has felt worse things in his life. This — this isn’t pain. Just some blood and bone. 

*** 

The next day, Arthur sets out early, trying to ride the tides for most of the journey. The vial in Arthur’s hand feels far too heavy, making his swim to the shore even more difficult. 

“It’s a protection potion,” Arthur tells Eames when the other boy finally arrives. “To help keep you safe,” and he has enough practice speaking in half-truths that Eames takes him at his word. 

Eames unstoppers it, takes a sniff. “Smells a bit like wilted flowers.” 

“Not sure I’m familiar with that particular scent,” Arthur says, “But the potion’s safe enough. Don’t drink it until you’re at your cottage, though; sometimes it can make you feel dizzy and I have enough to do without scraping your brains off the rocks.” 

“You say the sweetest things,” Eames says, but he closes the vial. “Is this my birthday gift, then?” 

Oh. 

Arthur forgot about that. He thinks about the sad assortment of shells he’s collected. He’ll have to keep them now. 

“Yes,” he says. 

Eames puts the vial in his pants pocket, but keeps his hand curled around it. “Well, thank you, darling Arthur, for once again looking out for my well-being. And, despite the fact that it’s my birthday and therefore I should be the only one receiving gifts, you should know that I’ve managed to scrape together all the ingredients necessary to make a cake, which, let me tell you, was no easy feat and possibly cost me my Nurse’s virtue, but — cake! Which I now have, and which I magnanimously plan to share with you." 

Eames finishes with a flourish. 

Arthur smiles, angles his body so Eames can’t see his white-knuckled grip on the rock. 

“That’s nice,” Arthur says. “Cake is nice.” He’s still not entirely sure what cake is, besides edible and something Eames likes to discuss at length. 

“Cake is amazing,” Eames says, affronted. “You’ll understand once you taste it. I’ll run up and get it now, all right?” 

“All right,” says Arthur. And then, because he’s not sure how much longer he can hold on: “Drink the potion before you come back, so you can tell me what it tastes like.” 

Eames nods and scampers up. “Just wait right here,” he says, but something makes him pause before walking towards the line of cottages in the distance. “I mean it,” he says. “No disappearing, all right?” 

“No disappearing,” Arthur says, body stone-heavy and grip weakening. “I promise.” 

He sinks beneath the waves the second Eames is out of sight. 

He is his father’s son. 

*** 


	2. Two.

***

The bombs fall a week later, and the water smells of sulfur for months after it’s over. Yusuf tells Arthur to remain in the caves, and Arthur obeys without a word. He has nowhere else to be.

***

The years go by, and Arthur grows longer, sleeker. He is as silent as before, but now his silences are sharp-edged, more predator than prey.

He has enough skill mixing potions that Yusuf leaves him the bulk of the work while spending most days in the city to tend to the queen, who has come down with the same sleeping sickness that killed her grandfather — a dangerous illness, according to Yusuf, but one that should be simple enough to cure. 

It’s dull in the caves without Yusuf, despite the added burden of having to mix the queen’s tonics. Arthur passes the time by training two eels he’s managed to catch, using a simple sight-switching spell to see with his right eye whatever they see with theirs. He lets them swim away, back to the city and its sleeping queen and desperate king, and he watches. 

Waits. 

***

Sometimes (at first) Arthur thinks about their last meeting, whether he could have held on for just a little bit longer, ended it on something other than a lie. But he’s never told him the truth, not really, and ultimately it doesn’t matter that he only got to see him for ten minutes instead of twenty, an hour, a day. In a way, it doesn’t even matter if he’s still alive — it’s all the same to Arthur, now, after all.

Sometimes (at first) Arthur thinks about their last meeting, and wonders what it was about lying to the boy that makes him so adept at lying to himself, after.

***

The potions do their work and the queen steadily grows better, stays awake for hours at a time. It takes Cobb and Yusuf nearly a half-year to realize her bizarre confusion over whether she’s still asleep is slowly getting worse, and that her increasing moments of lucidity are mere play-acting. 

Even through the eyes of his eels, Arthur can tell that she’s beautiful in a way few things are. Dark red curls skim along the pale skin of her neck and shoulders as her eyes flash with anger at being denied, slim fingers trembling in rage, and he almost understands why Cobb seems so desperate to keep her. 

He watches Cobb’s mouth make the shape of her name — _Mal_ — like an invocation, over and over, but she never names him back. Yusuf says she calls him her beautiful dream, sometimes; the nightmare she can’t escape, others. 

***

In his twentieth year the ship comes. It’s strange; usually the ships stay near the new docks, built after the shore’s war, but this one drops anchor only an hour’s swim away from the caves. Arthur watches it through the eels’ eyes, doesn’t even have to nudge them closer — they’re entranced by the colored sparks of light shooting into the sky from the deck. 

_Bombs_ , thinks Arthur, but the toy kind, perhaps.

He’s curious as to what else they have, and whether he’ll get a chance to see for himself. There’s a storm brewing, a ship-breaking storm, and he wonders absently whether any parts of the two-legged bodies would be useful ingredients, even as he knows he’d never be able to touch them.

_Sentimental_ , Eel whispers, and after all this time Arthur can hear despite the distance.

_Not us_ , hisses Eel.

_Delicious_ , Eel agrees, and Arthur says nothing. The eels can do what they like with the corpses, as long as they don’t bring any to the caves. 

_Little Red_ , Eel hisses suddenly, and Arthur sees what Eel sees: a pale face staring up at the ship from the shadows, long curls trailing down into the water. Philippa, the mad queen’s daughter, favored child of the king. Sixteen winters, now, Arthur thinks; perhaps not so little after all.

_Well, well_ , says Eel.

Arthur smiles.

***

The rain starts suddenly, lightning and thunder tearing through the sky. Arthur tells the eels to stay close to the ship and to Philippa, promising them extra shrimp for their trouble. 

The men on board are panicked, running back and forth, swinging ropes and buckets and presumably shouting with fear. One sudden blast of lightning and the wooden post in the middle catches fire, another and — 

_No_.

There’s a man falling from the deck. Eyes closed; knocked unconscious by a swinging post, but Arthur had seen his face in the moment before, lit up by the storm, and —

_No_ , Arthur thinks, but his body is already moving, making its way out of the caves, but — He’s too slow. The ship is an hour’s swim away, an impossible distance for Arthur. And the man is sinking deeper, and Eel is tugging on the cloth of his pants as though understanding Arthur’s panic but he’s too heavy, he can’t — his lungs —

_Find her_ , he tells Eel, and Eel lets go immediately and swims to where he saw Philippa last.

_Heart_ , Eel hisses, still wrapped around — the man, his torso, and Arthur nods, and assumes Eel means the heart is still beating.

Then there’s an explosion of red hair and Eel slithers away, and Arthur watches as Philippa pulls the man upwards, up towards the air and then tugs him to shore, and he should be watching her face, watching — but he can’t, he —

Philippa lays the man out on the sand, where he splutters and quiets, the rain hitting his face. 

Arthur breathes. 

Philippa stays with the man until morning.

Arthur watches.

***

At night, curling his tail around himself for warmth, Arthur closes his eyes and has memories instead of dreams.

***

She comes in three days’ time. Arthur is mildly impressed that she managed to find him so quickly. The caves are at the outer edges of the kingdom, bordering the forbidden zone. 

“You’re Yusuf’s boy,” she says, and it’s not a question. “I — I need a spell. I have gold.”

Arthur says nothing and continues sharpening his knife; lets her come to the realization that he has no use for gold on her own.

“What would you want, then?” she finally asks. “As payment?”

“Depends on the spell,” he says, and his voice is much too loud outside his head.

“A transformation spell,” Philippa says. Her hands are curled into fists against her body, but her spine is straight. Her hair curls wildly around her face. “I — I want to be human,” she adds, and there’s no trace of fear in her voice despite the fact that she’s just uttered blasphemy; committed treachery against the king and his hatred of the surface-folk. 

“It’s forbidden,” Arthur says, because someone has to.

“So is disobeying a member of the royal house,” Philippa retorts.

“Your father,” Arthur says.

“My father is too busy looking after my mother, who’s much too busy arguing that we’re just figments of her imagination,” says Philippa; a statement of facts. 

A minute of silence passes; Arthur turns and begins chopping some spindleroot. 

“There’s a spell,” he says, his back still turned to her. “But it’s dangerous.”

“I’m not scared!” Philippa says, and Arthur doesn’t need to see her to know she’s lifting her chin, staring out proudly.

“No,” says Arthur, “Of course not. You’re in love, aren’t you?”

“Does it matter?” she asks, and that’s as good as a yes, even if all it really means is: _Anything would be better than this_. 

“It does,” Arthur answers. “I can only make a temporary spell. For it to last you’ll need to kiss whoever it is within three days’ time.”

“Why?” asks Philippa, and she sounds slightly bewildered.

Arthur shrugs and examines his hands for traces of spindleroot. “I don’t set the rules,” he tells her. _I just make them up as I go along_. Somewhere in the caves he can hear Eel hiss out a laugh.

“All right,” says Philippa. “That sounds simple enough. So — will you make the potion? Or do you need...?”

“I’ll need your voice,” he says, and she starts at that, probably remembering how she sang — how she sang to the man on the beach until he began to wake. 

“My voice?” she asks, tentative for the first time since entering the caves.

“Could take your eyes instead,” says Arthur, and goes back to chopping. “Or your nose. Maybe your right hand. Magic requires sacrifice to work.”

“And you?” she asks, voice firming. “What will the exiled prince require?”

Arthur smiles at her, shark-toothed. “I live to serve,” he says, and tosses the chopped root into a bubbling cauldron, getting the sight-switching spell ready to be mixed in with the transformative draught and the final spell. Even if she doesn’t really love him, she’ll still seek him out because she could, maybe, if she tried. Arthur briefly wonders what that’s like, that feeling of possibility, as he reaches for the serrated knife. 

“Hold still,” he says. “This will sting a bit.” 

Her screams echo off the walls even after he holds her voice in his hand. 

***

He tells her to drink the potion once she’s near the shore, and she nods, still shaking slightly. He has the eels follow her up, just in case. They help lead her to the beach, and she scrambles onto — onto a rock, pulling herself up with her arms. 

There’s a shout then, somewhere nearby, and the eels slink away back into the ocean and the noise disappears with them.

He can see, though, through Philippa’s right eye; too-broad shoulders and too-thick legs and a crooked grin that’s exactly the same as Arthur remembers.

_Eames_ , Arthur lets himself think, and the world doesn’t come apart at the seams like it should. 

***

Arthur looks through Philippa’s eye and it’s for the wrong reasons, and it hurts enough that the crime is its own punishment. And this — this is yet another entry in the encyclopedia of pain Arthur has been compiling since childhood. One eye fixed on the brightness of Eames’s world, its textures and colors and lights, and the other staring out blankly at the shadowy caves — Arthur doesn’t know why it stings, tells himself that’s why he can’t look away. 

Based on what he sees in her glass, Philippa is even more beautiful out in the sunshine than she is in the water. 

(And Eames — Eames is still quick to smile, quick to laugh, quick to talk — he talks for Philippa once he realizes she can’t answer, and by the frequency with which her hand hits at his chest he gets it wrong more often than not, but neither of them seems to mind.)

Arthur falls behind on his potion-making, but he can catch up soon enough. It’s only for three days. And then — he’ll have his bargaining chip, and Cobb. Well, Cobb will just have to bargain.

On the second day Arthur grows restless, but there’s nowhere for him to go. The sun is close to setting and Philippa has spent nearly every wakening moment in Eames’s sight, and yet — he doesn’t kiss her. Stranger still, she doesn’t kiss him. Perhaps she thinks Eames has to take the initiative for the spell to work, perhaps Arthur hadn’t explained it well enough, perhaps —

Arthur suddenly realizes, with a detached sense of dread, that he can’t quite remember what he’d been thinking of when he finished mixing the transformative draught together with the final spell. Nor does he have any idea what thoughts Philippa had in her head. 

_Sentimental_ , Eel hisses, and Arthur stays silent. 

_Little Red?_ Eel asks, and Arthur shrugs. His guess is as good as Arthur’s, at this point. 

***

On the morning of the third day, Yusuf swims into the caves and gives Arthur a look. Arthur’s left eye looks back.

“The queen is dead,” Yusuf says. “The king is mad with grief — well, madder, at any rate. He’s noted his daughter’s absence, and will not be merciful once he learns of your part in it.”

Arthur says nothing. Eames is laughing at something, up there; something that Philippa’s done. 

“Foolish boy,” Yusuf sighs. “Do you think you’re the first to think of using a sight-switching spell on an eel or a fish?”

Arthur’s left eye glances down at one of the dozens of tiny fish flitting through the caves’ waters, but he doesn’t answer. 

“Do you remember, all those years ago, when I brought you here?” Yusuf asks, and he sounds almost wistful. “I woke up that first night and you were standing over me with a knife almost as big as you were. You stood there for hours. I don’t know how you managed, with your skinny little arms.”

Arthur thinks back. He doesn’t remember much from that time, after his exile and before Eames. “I didn’t know you woke up,” he says, finally. 

Yusuf barks out a laugh. “I imagine if you did, I’d not still be swimming,” he says. “I thought it...prudent, from then on, not to get in your way. But you’ve gone too far this time, Arthur — you need to get her back, and quickly. I’ve had the gulls relay a message — and you owe me for that one; gulls, honestly — and she’ll meet you at the old dock in two hours so you’d better get going.”

So that’s why those birds had flown into her room. Arthur blinks back into himself.

“Why?” he asks. “It’ll all be over by sunset, anyway. The potion may kill her,” he adds thoughtfully, “but I’m not sure how to undo it at this point.”

Yusuf covers his face with his hand. “Just get her down here,” he says, muffled against his palm, “and I’ll fix it. Just — hurry.”

The old dock is barely a half hour’s swim away, but for Arthur to make it there in two will require every bit of his strength. 

“What should I tell her?” he asks, awkwardly making his way out of the caves. 

“Tell her if she still wants a father to return to, she’d better make haste,” yells Yusuf.

Arthur isn’t sure that she does, really, but he supposes neither of them has much of a choice. 

***

He can hear him before he even reaches the dock, and his voice is deeper, a touch wry. He’s asking Philippa why she’s dragged him out here, something Arthur wouldn’t mind knowing himself, but there’s no help for it now. 

Exhausted, wondering dimly how he’ll ever make it back to the caves, Arthur latches on to the end of the dock and levers himself up until his torso is above the water, keeping his tail carefully hidden.

“You need to go back,” he rasps out. Philippa merely blinks at him, while Eames has gone quiet, mouth slightly open in shock. Arthur can’t make himself look away, stares the entire time he speaks.

“Your mother’s dead,” he says. “You need to go back _now_ ,” and Philippa stumbles forward, towards Arthur, and —

The water trembles. 

Philippa’s struggling to reach Arthur, breaking Eames’s grip on her wrist; Eames, who’s still frozen in shock, and —

There’s a rush of water, then; somehow funneling up, catching both Arthur and Philippa before crashing down, down into the sea, and before he shuts his eyes Arthur thinks, _Well, all right then_ , and pictures Eames’s face, his ridiculous mouth, and is almost content. 

***

Arthur wakes up. He isn’t sure what happened, but his limp body is being held up by two guards, and Philippa, fins and voice restored, is hanging off of her father’s arm, yelling, and the Trident is pointed straight at Arthur’s heart.

Someone coughs. Arthur manages to turn his head and sees Yusuf standing calmly beside the guard on his right. 

“If I may speak, your majesty,” Yusuf says, “It seems rather a waste for you to have spared the boy’s life once only to kill him now.”

“He disobeyed,” Cobb says, and there’s no emotion in his voice. 

“True,” says Yusuf, “But unintentionally, I’d wager. Perhaps your daughter came to him, and told him she was the princess, and he was to do as she said. Tell me, Arthur, what recompense did you receive for the spell?”

Arthur stays silent. 

“I’ll see to my daughter’s discipline later,” says Cobb. “But he — ” 

“He should be punished according to his crime, I completely agree,” Yusuf interrupts smoothly. “Which is why, if I may be so bold as to guess your intentions, you are planning to use the Trident to banish him to the surface world till his death, much as he planned to do with your daughter.” 

“...Yes,” says Cobb, lowering the Trident as though in a daze. “Yes.”

Arthur turns back to Yusuf, confused. It doesn’t work that way; he’ll need to — if the magic is to actually _transform_ —

“What happened to his tail fin?” Cobb suddenly asks, as though seeing Arthur for the very first time.

“Bitten off by a shark when he was a child,” answers Yusuf. Arthur can’t read the look he gives him, not until Yusuf adds, “He’s made many sacrifices in his time with me, I’m afraid. Too many to count,” and Arthur understands but doesn’t believe.

“All right,” says the king. “Tomorrow, then. First, I need to...” He trails off, head bowed. Philippa releases his arm but stays close.

Arthur shuts his eyes again.

***

She comes to him that night in the dungeon. It’s only slightly darker and more dreary than the caves, and Arthur feels at home, almost; he’s not expecting any company. He’s already warned the eels to stay away.

“Hello,” says Philippa. 

Arthur doesn’t know what she wants from him, what she thinks he can give her.

“Sorry about, well, everything,” she says, curling her hand around one of the bars of his cell. 

Arthur doesn’t reply.

“It was interesting while it lasted,” she says, biting her lip and looking up at him through her lashes, and Arthur thinks, _Oh_. She just wants someone to talk to.

“What was it like?” he asks, thinking: _What a strange little thing you are, to see me as a friend_.

“Odd,” says Philippa. “Very bright.” The words come tripping out of her, one after the other. “And everything’s so — sharp. Even the soft things, if that makes any sense. Just — prickly. And walking, you never quite get used to it, and you feel so silly when you get it wrong, and it’s terrifying, sometimes, looking down and seeing these two strange things sticking out of your torso, and — it’s terrifying.”

She pauses, takes a breath.

“You didn’t kiss him,” Arthur says, because. Because she didn’t.

“No,” she says. “He’s very sweet, and handsome, but — there’s something off about him. He’s not entirely there. It’s like — he was always straining to see something, just out of range.”

She doesn’t say: _He reminded me too much of my mother_.

“What — what would have happened if we had kissed, that first or second day?” she asks. 

Arthur watches a fish swim by; wonders if it’s one of Yusuf’s spies. “It would’ve triggered the final spell,” he says. “By kissing him, you’d be sacrificing everything you’d ever known just to be with him, permanently — in theory, a big enough sacrifice that the magic would’ve let you be with him, permanently.”

“That’s a very neat way of doing things,” says Philippa. 

Arthur doesn’t say: _And then the dreams would have started_. He still can’t remember what he’d been thinking of at the time; doesn’t know what the magic had planned. 

“And then what?” Philippa asks.

Arthur looks at her. 

“I’m not half as silly as I seem, you know,” she says, rueful rather than angry. “I may not have thought of it at the time, but there was no reason for you to help me and risk angering my father, unless — ”

“Your father would’ve wanted you back,” Arthur says.

“And you would have returned me,” Philippa says slowly, then laughs. “You would have given him a daughter who wanted nothing more than to escape him, and made him pay dearly for the privilege.”

She doesn’t say: _You would have given him Mal all over again_. Neither does Arthur, though he knows it to be truth and not exaggeration. 

“I would have made him suffer,” says Arthur. He doesn’t say: _I know all the different ways how_.

They wait, silent.

“Will it work?” Philippa finally asks.

Arthur shrugs. “If it doesn’t, it’ll kill me, so either way I guess I’ll be leaving.”

“I could’ve kissed him,” Philippa says.

Arthur doesn’t reply.

“But I didn’t,” she says. “It’s just — terrifying, and you can’t explain why, not even to yourself, not really. I think, in the end, despite everything, I just wanted to go home.”

Arthur watches her hands, watches her fingers tap against the bars.

And thinks again, _What a strange thing you are_. 

Philippa smiles at him, then, sudden and sweet. “I won’t let him hurt you,” she says, turning away. 

Arthur almost asks, _Who?_ , but she’s already gone. 

 

***

Arthur wakes up, briefly, on the dock; long enough to confirm that he’s still alive and has two legs and one foot; long enough to feel relieved that someone — Yusuf, most likely — has covered him with a cloth; almost long enough to see Eames running towards him, shouting something he can’t hear.

***

The next time he wakes up, he’s in a nest of some sort and understands what Philippa meant, about even soft things being prickly. 

He doesn’t have long to dwell on it, though, as almost immediately after his eyes open Eames’s hand is on his chin, turning Arthur towards him.

“Right,” says Eames, and his voice is strained; rough with something Arthur can’t name. 

“Right,” Eames says again. “So, can you talk, or is that something your kind loses along with the tail?”

Arthur doesn’t know how to answer him.

“Fine then, I can do the talking,” says Eames, and Arthur doesn’t understand why he sounds so angry, like Arthur’s done something to hurt him. Maybe he misses Philippa.

“Your name is Arthur,” Eames says. Arthur re-evaluates his theory. “Your name is Arthur and you’re an asshole. Your name is Arthur and you exist out here, in the real world, and not just in my dreams, and half my staff thinks I’m mad because I made sure they could all see you, too, and the other half thought I was mad even before that little exercise, and again, for the record, you’re an asshole.”

Arthur says nothing.

“I dreamed about you for ten years. Ten fucking years, and add to that I can’t really remember what happened those five months I spent here, and it’s enough to make any one go a tad off, really.”

Eames is glaring hard at the ground, now, but every so often his gaze flits back to Arthur, as if to make sure he’s still there. Arthur tries to sink further into the cloth around him.

“I’ve spent the past five years here,” Eames continues, voice steadily rising as he talks. “Ever since — ever since my father died. I took his money and I built a house. I even bought a ship and the first time I set it out on the ocean I nearly killed thirty men including myself, only to miraculously survive, only to have a girl who strangely reminded me of you appear three days later, only to have her lead me to an older, sharper version of you, only to watch you both disappear in a giant funnel of water, only to find you maimed and half-dead on the dock the next morning!” 

“Maimed?” Arthur asks.

Eames’s eyes flash. 

“You’re missing your left foot,” Eames tells him, “But don’t let it bother you too much, you’re still gorgeous. And also, I’d like to mention, an asshole, though apparently one who still has the use of his larynx.”

Arthur watches him pace next to the nest. 

“I’ve had some time to think about things, while you were lying there doing your best impression of a corpse,” Eames says, and he sounds calmer now, as though this is something he’s rehearsed. “That last potion — I don’t have any dreams of you that take place after I drink it. It was supposed to — what? Make me forget you?”

Arthur lowers his gaze, which is answer enough.

“Why? Because you’d get in trouble if someone found out I knew? Because your sorcerer, he — ”

“Because you wouldn’t leave,” Arthur interrupts, quietly. His body feels so heavy here. All he wants to do is go to sleep again, but he can’t, not while Eames is watching him. 

“Sorry,” he adds, because it seems like something he should say. 

“For what?” Eames asks, and he sounds — sad, now; no longer angry so much as resigned. “For taking away my memories, or for not doing the job properly?”

Arthur doesn’t answer.

***

“It all actually happened, didn’t it?” Eames asks. They’ve been having the same conversation for days now, and Arthur is tired of it. He’s tired of being trapped in this — bed, Eames called it — but his body is still too weak to move on its own. He’s still not used to its heaviness. The Trident is apparently ill-suited for delicate tasks. He feels as though he’d been bludgeoned with magic. 

“Why?” Eames asks; the thirty-third _why_ so far. 

“You wouldn’t leave,” Arthur says, the only answer he has to give. Because that’s the problem, isn’t it: Eames doesn’t leave. He’s always there. 

“It was supposed to erase me completely, it — it should’ve worked,” Arthur says. 

“Well, it didn’t, probably because you’re an idiot.” 

Arthur musters up enough strength to turn and glare at him. Eames grins back, and there’s something savage in it. 

“You’re going to stay here,” Eames tells him. “You’re not going to disappear.”

“I’m not your prisoner,” says Arthur. “And anyway, what do you want me around for? I don’t know how to do anything up here, I can’t even walk and — ”

“You’ll learn,” says Eames. “I’ll teach you. And you’ll stay with me because I’m the only one you’ve ever really wanted.”

Arthur doesn’t know how Eames can be so certain. “I’m not sure I’m capable of want, anymore,” he says, honest for once. 

“You’ll learn that too,” Eames promises. “I’m a very good teacher when it comes to that,” and he places his hand on Arthur’s shin, soft and heavy. 

 

***

Arthur takes his first steps using a wooden attachment belted to his left shin, and Eames gives him a present as a reward: a cane topped with a silver sea serpent.

“He has your smile,” Eames says, easily ducking the whack Arthur aims at his head. Arthur’s body is still either far too slow or too jerky in its motions, but Eames says he’s getting better. Arthur can’t tell if he’s lying or in denial. He supposes it doesn’t really matter. 

Arthur is calmer in the evenings, when Eames presses down on him in bed. The pressure makes it easier to breathe. 

They talk; or rather Eames talks and sometimes Arthur will reply, scratching his fingers through Eames’s hair. 

Eames never mentions his father, though sometimes he’ll tell stories about his mother, words soft and stilted. He asks about Arthur’s family and Arthur says, “They’re all dead. Philippa’s father killed them,” because he’s curious to see how Eames will react, but Eames just kisses Arthur’s collarbone and asks if Arthur misses them.

“No,” says Arthur. “I’ve forgotten them, mostly,” and Eames hums and doesn’t even bring up the potion, and Arthur supposes that’s progress, of a sort. 

Arthur knows that Eames was somehow involved in his father’s death; it echoes in the spaces when Eames speaks — not guilt, but an acknowledgement of its absence. Arthur wonders what Eames can hear in Arthur’s silences; whether he can sense the emptiness where Mal’s ghost should be, or her shadow.

“Tomorrow, we’re going out for cake,” Eames mumbles, half asleep; his own version of good-night. Arthur closes his eyes. 

***

After the second time Arthur throws a plate at his head, Eames hires a girl to teach him which fork to use when, and how to greet servants, and how much cloth should be worn at different times of the year.

Eames knows all the rules but delights in flaunting them, which makes him a less than ideal tutor. The girl, Ariadne, is clever and patient and never seems exasperated by Arthur’s ignorance the way the servants are.

“What exactly did Eames tell you?” he asks her once, watching carefully as she shows him how to put on a cravat.

“He said you were raised by highly literate gypsies who taught you words like ‘sanguinary’ and how to survive in the wild, but not much else,” she says, cheerful as always. “Though to everyone else around here, that translates to ‘snooty American,’ so I wouldn’t worry about it too much. They think I’m a communist radical just because I like to wear trousers and ride a bicycle.”

Arthur adds another three things to his mental list of words to look up. 

“You and Ariadne seem to be getting along,” Eames says cautiously at dinner that night. 

Arthur looks up from his salad. “We’re running away together,” he says. “Well, hobbling, in my case.”

Eames flicks a crouton at him. “I just think it’s nice, you having friends,” and he sounds oddly jealous and yet relieved that there’s something else to tie Arthur here.

“I had friends before,” Arthur says.

“You had _eels_ ,” Eames retorts.

Arthur’s still getting used to his legs, but manages to land a solid kick under the table just the same.

***

 

Arthur wants Eames to ask about the scars on his arm. He wants him to ask, _Were all these for me?_ so Arthur can nod and Eames can press his mouth against each one, so that even though Arthur can’t feel it — maybe he will, deeper down. 

Arthur wants Eames to ask about his fin, ask if that was for him, too, so Arthur can shake his head and say, _No, it was for me_ , because Eames deserves the truth and Arthur doesn’t know how else to tell him.

But Eames doesn’t ask. Instead, he kisses his way up Arthur’s arm, careful and slow, and grips Arthur’s shin tightly in his hand while pressing inside him, biting at Arthur’s neck while Arthur pants up at the ceiling, quiet even now. 

“Eames,” he whispers, and the world doesn’t quite come apart at the seams, but it should.

***

 

End.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In my head, this story was known as, “The one where Arthur’s like a half-fish, sociopathic version of the Giving Tree,” so if there are issues with the tone, that’s, uh, probably why. Anyway, thanks for taking the time to read! Concrit welcome. 
> 
> ...and yes, Arthur named both his eels Eel.


End file.
